> As we see time and time again, billionaires tend to think they can do whatever they want, riding roughshod over communities and the environment, then build bunkers to hide in for when the consequences of their actions catch up with them.
Got it in a nutshell.
We know damn well that many, if not most, of those hyper-rich, self-proclaimed "libertarians" don't give a toss about the "liberty" of the great unwashed, or anyone other than themselves and their hyper-rich chums. (*1)
They just want the right to carry on doing what the f*** *they* want without anyone getting in the way. It's been said countless times before, but people like that don't really want or support "freedom" or "freedom of speech" (*2), and never did. They want freedom from consequences, and only for themselves.
Let's remember that Peter Thiel- one of the most openly creepy "libertarians" whose views make clear he'd be more accurately described as a "neo-feudalist" or "neo-fascist"- said the quiet part out loud (*3) with his statement that "no longer believe[s] that freedom and democracy are compatible".
They're anti-government and anti-authority except when they need someone to suppress the plebs they'd happily screw over from rising up with their pitchforks and torches and mounting their heads on spikes at the entrance to the city.
They don't have a problem with any of this because they're at the top, and always will be if it plays out like that.
Ask yourself if the likes of Elon Musk- someone born into a highly-privileged, already-rich background, who leveraged that to become even richer, who has never known and will never know what it is to be poor- would be so keen to indulge his tech bro fantasy that we sacrifice social spending and making the lives of the vast majority of ordinary people in favour of the space exploration he thinks we need to save the human race (*4) if *he* was one of the plebs that actually had to live in squalor to fulfil that manchild fantasy.
(*1) Or those that like to imagine themselves among them when Ayn Rand rises from the grave and the libertarian revolution begins.
(*2) Think the "Free speech absolutist" manchild who bans those who say something that upsets him from his platform at the drop of a hat.
(*3) This says as much about him as the statement itself- the fact that he doesn't even feel the need to pretend otherwise. And indeed, he gloatingly named his big-data surveillance/panopticon business "Palantir" after a Lord of the Rings reference to a magical surveillance technology subverted for evil.
(*4) "A bunch of guys who's only social education is the funky sci-fi books they read whilst growing up, trying to deal with the "big questions" - Andy 73
Biting the hand that feeds IT
